Tony Thomas, Windstream's former CFO, is now CEO.
The departure of former Windstream Holdings Inc. CEO Jeff Gardner in December was in part due to poor performance, the company’s new CEO said in an interview with Arkansas Business.
The comments by CEO Tony Thomas elaborated on the leadership changes, which the company previously said were driven by a needed “change in perspective” to “accelerate the pace of change.”
When asked if there were other factors that influenced Gardner’s exit, Thomas said that an “overall collective view of performance” also played a role.
“I can tell you unequivocally that the board’s decision to make this change was tied to Windstream’s financial performance and operational performance. And that was an evaluation of where Windstream was at [then] and where it needed to go,” Thomas said. “The decision that Jeff and the board reached was [that] change was required to achieve what the board wanted, to achieve what I call sometimes the full potential of Windstream.
“We have this great collection of assets and people and we’re actually capable of executing and operating more effectively, and that is really what centered on the board’s decision,” he said.
Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) of Little Rock announced Gardner’s resignation Dec. 11. Thomas, who had been appointed to lead the company’s real estate investment trust spinoff, known as Communications Sales & Leasing Inc., immediately replaced Gardner.
Windstream’s earnings lagged the previous year’s for each quarter of 2014. The company’s third-quarter net income — released about a month before Gardner resigned — was down 74 percent from the same quarter the year before.
Thomas said that the board and Gardner did not have the leadership change in the works when the REIT was announced.
“It happened as the year progressed. These decisions are probably all ultimately ones where there’s constant evaluation points as you’re a CEO,” he said. “As a CEO, you’re constantly being evaluated. And obviously our third-quarter financial results in 2014 were disappointing. And I think that, coupled with the board’s view of where they wanted to take the business, decided a change was necessary,” Thomas said.
Thomas said that he was hopeful that the REIT will attract other companies and that Windstream had “made a lot of progress over the last two months.”
“I feel like the leadership team is in place, we have a good set of assets, we have talented employees, and at this point it’s about execution, executing the REIT transaction and executing our operational plan for 2015,” Thomas said.
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